You are listening to the Roberta Glass True Crime Report, putting the true back in true crime.

From New York City, Roberta Glass is now on the record.

My guest, Jennifer Bishop Jenkins is the president and co-founder of the National Organization of Victims of Juvenile Murderers.

Her sister, brother-in-law, and their unborn child were murdered in Winneka, Illinois in 1990 by a 16-year-old diagnosed sociopath who is now serving life without parole in the Illinois Department of Corrections. Jennifer is an advocate

for victims' rights, violence prevention, criminal justice reform, and public safety.

She owns a small business in the Chicago suburbs and is a retired award-winning teacher.

Along with her husband, Bill Jenkins, college professor, and the father of a murder victim and author of What to Do When the Police Leave a Guide to the First Days of Traumatic Loss.

Jennifer and Bill are frequent speakers and trainers to the victim service professionals

across the nation and crisis responders. Welcome, Jennifer Bishop Jenkins.

What is the National Organization of Victims of Juvenile Murders and why was it started and what does the organization do?

We are just a club of murder victims family members who, it started in around 2005, right after the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the juvenile death penalty, and activists

that were a juvenile justice reform-driven began to set their sights on the life sentences

and other sentences. I think some of us had felt like, you know, they'd be satisfied

to pay it abolished the juvenile death penalty. But there

was a huge amount of new influx of money that came from Soros and other sources that enabled

and empowered a significant effort on the part of juvenile justice reformers to dramatically attack

and reduce and change incarceration situation for anybody under the age of 18

at the time of their offense. And, you know, there's nothing wrong with, you know, juvenile

justice reform. It's, it was very needed in, in many circumstances. This was, I think, the thing

that kind of was a shocker to me as an insider victim activist, but also progressive reformer for criminal justice issues.

I worked against the death penalty. I supported abolishing the juvenile death penalty personally.

That is not NOVJM's position. But I'm one of, you know, three co-founders of NOVJM and were stunned, frankly, at the fact that the very first thing that they tried to undo

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